A very long post that ends with my favorite family video of all time.

Rewind four or five days.

We were watching an episode of Call the Midwife (my latest Netflix BBC series). I sat and knit while Husband chipped away at the laundry mountain. It was so nice. So, so nice. And then the episode got weird. A young girl has a mental breakdown after being forced to place her baby for adoption, so she kidnaps another young couple's infant. The young mother is almost on the brink of another breakdown as the year before she had given birth to a still born baby. The show is really not as sinister or weird as my description makes it seem, but obviously this wasn't my favorite episode- for many reasons. I could tell because my knitting kept getting tighter and tighter and I dropped several stitches. When we went to bed I made Husband check the front living room windows to be sure they were locked. And the garage door. And then once in bed, get out and check on the kids one more time.

"What do you want me to check?"

"I don't know. Just go check..."

And he sleepily stumbled away mumbling something about shark infested waters, lemonade, and Dr. Laura. God love him.

When he came back he asked me what was wrong.

"I don't know. I just...I just...I just want everything to be okay."

"Everything is okay" he reassured me.

I went to sleep thinking about all the things that are okay right now. Better than okay even. My kids are all at really great stages. Jobs are good, pay well and offer the flexibility we like. The house is becoming more and more "us" with every project that is completed. We love attending the Spanish ward and watching our family's language skills increase. And to be truthful, I haven't wanted to blog about just how good things have been the last couple of weeks. This is the "easiest" we've had it in a long, long time. Could this be our new normal? I don't even want to jinx it.

Wednesday evening I needed to take my bunny to the vet. No biggie, just getting checked out in case I decide to spay her before bringing home our new bunny buddy in a couple of weeks. Husband met me in the parking lot and took the kids to Taco Bell and the park. I met them there. As I walked up the sidewalk I could see Papa swinging as high as he could and Scrunch and Porkchop begging him to jump out (again). Juju saw me coming and got excited and started clapping. The weather was perfect, they were so happy and I thought, "This is awesome. Everything is better than ok."

Papa needed to go back to work for a few hours, so I took the kids and we went and washed the car. Twice because they think it's fun. And we stopped by Lowe's to pick up our last chair. We came home, did jammies and stories, and put everyone to bed. Scrunch and Juju have had a bit of a runny nose and I knew Porkchop was well on his way. I felt like I should cover him with his inhaler just to be safe. I don't know why I thought that, but I did it anyway.

My Porkchop is big for his age. Like really big. And according to the speech therapist his 'mean length of utterance' (# of words in a sentence) is great, but his intelligibility...not so much. This means he has full on conversations that no one can understand but me. He's this great big, wonky-nosed, goofy kid that you can't help but smile when he talks to you. He's all boy. And by that I mean he wants to go, go, go and break things and loves anything cars, trucks, and especially fire engines. Obviously he's carved a special spot in his mama's heart. He's so tough. But when he gets a simple cold or runny nose it leads to an asthma attack, making him seem so fragile.

After I put Juju to sleep I went and cuddled in my bed with Scrunch and we both ended up falling asleep. A few hours later I woke up and checked my phone. It was just before midnight and Husband should be home soon. All of a sudden I felt that new mom panic feeling of "where's the baby?" but instead it was "Where's Erick?" I jumped out of bed and ran into his room. He was sitting on the side of his bed with tears running down his face, wheezing, and unable to talk. His inhaler lay on the shelf where I'd left it. I gave it to him and waited for it to work. Part of being a mommy is that you become accustomed to doing three or seven things at once without thinking about it. In that moment, I completely maxed out the skill as I simultaneously checked the time on my cell, started timing and counting his respirations, scooped him up in a blanket, and took him into the laundry room to search for my pulse oximeter.

As I found it and watched as his oxygen saturation dip lower, I started debating with myself. Should I have John meet me at the ER? How will I get them all loaded into the car and watch him at the same time? I finally decided that if it didn't resolve in a couple minutes, I would call 911. We are 25 minutes away from the nearest hospital and three from a full time fire station. I knew they would have an oxygen mask. I got John on the phone and told him he needed to get home and I took Porkchop to sit on my lap on the front porch and wait. It seemed like a really long time as I sat there in the dark praying. Please, please let him breathe. Let his work. Let him breathe. "He needs a blessing", I thought. Where the hell was my husband? So I kept praying and calling on blessings for him myself. He began to relax and while still wheezy, I knew it was passing. Without greeting, John pulled into the driveway and ran up the sidewalk. "He needs a blessing right now." So on the front porch Porkchop got a blessing.

It was hard to go to sleep that night. I sent Husband in to sleep with him just in case. The next morning Porkchop wandered into my room, like he does every morning. "Wake up, Mom. Wake up. Weed to me. Peese weed to me." So I did.

He is going to be okay. I know he is going to be okay. Everything is okay.